Living Lean...

So, what do you do to save money? Or what gets you through the tough times? It looks like DH and I are going to have to tighten our belts up in a big way, so we are looking at obvious things like canceling our Blockbuster dvd rental package, magazine subscriptions, even canceling Sky, etc. We live in a small town, I assume if we were both to become unemployed, we could just walk or ride our bikes around town to run our errands so we wouldn't need to use our car. I wonder what other things we could do to save money and get down to a really basic lifestyle to get through the hard times.... or any advice for earning a bit of extra money? Obviously, we could sell a few things on eBay, etc....
What do you think?

Re Sky, you can cancel your subscription but still get Freesat from Sky which gives you loads of channels. It costs something like £20 once, so it's really worth it if you already have the dish up!

Cook with basic ingredients, and vegetarian as much as you can. Say goodbye to ready meals and branded, packaged foods. Say hello to market stalls and bulk foods! (the upside here is that you'll probably be healthier for it anyway!)

Walking and cycling will really cut down on your costs, too, as you noted.

Make a weekly budget, get your allowance out in cash at the beginning of each week and STICK TO IT. Leave your cards at home if you need to. While you're sitting down to work out your budget, now's the time to list ALL your outgoings (a bank statement might be helpful here for reference) and start cancelling things you can do without. I second the Freesat/Freeview tv option - we've had freeview for years and there's more there than we'd ever watch. And the big Sky programmes all end up on Sky 3 (a Freeview channel) eventually anyway).

Downgrade from brand name foods to store brands

check out Money Saving Expert

Yeap, free tv in this country is great and have never needed anything moreso, so I think that's a good idea freesat/freeview  

I have also been having money struggles (my own fault for not budgeting in the unexpected- but I've seemingly had loads of very unexpected expenses lately)- I got to the end of the month with £1.20 in the bank    

So I have no idea, I'm interested in the responses!

I've been working on my food bills- eating local food- I get a great veg box for £12 and it lasts me 2 weeks- less than £1/day for veg is fantastic, especially because I bring my lunch from leftovers everyday- so it's like 50p a meal for veg -and worth that!    (except no local beef now since it was a farm near us that has been selling off the cloned beef, lol   )- so bringing lunches and not having ready made/food out is good too.  

I suppose its the little things as well- energy efficient lightbulbs, shutting off lights/standby etc, to save on bills.  

I need to get better at budgeting
Check out  http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/  

x-posted with slices
  

Hi there,

Lots of good advice so far!

Also Jewlz, you are on the right track with your thinking, but you can go a little further. The basic 'luxuries' are what you do jettison first - then look at bigger items or expenditure items.

Money Saving Expert is a fantastic site from which to get ideas. Perhaps going to a £15/month mobile plan instead of £25, smaller Sky or Cable TV packages - or do away with it altogether? You've already thought about ditching the car, perhaps sell it and get a bangernomic car instead? unless you really can do without it completely.

How far you can and want to trim remains up to you - there are some instances where others have really taken to a what's seems a threadbare existence. Do things like change to lower wattage light bulbs, perhaps leave the heating on a lower setting and stick an extra layer on (winter of course!) switching electrical items to off instead of standby, sell off non needed or extra items on ebay, buy in bulk and make your own sandwiches/lunch at work, limit yourself to 'treats' - maybe 2 a week max starbucks coffees etc, junk food perhaps on one night in town only, look to change your electricity tariff, shop around for cheaper contents insurance cover. These are all cost cutting measures of course. The other side of the coin is to as you say, increase income - perhaps look at a part time job, a home based business of some kind, offer your services - no not those kind! - can you perhaps tutor? other service type offering? - one often mentioned aspect which is a little shaky nowadays is to look for a better paying job or asking for a rise at your current job.

One thing mentioned and what I always say is to get Financial Software to track all your expenses and income to see exactly where you stand. By running reports and using built in tools for planning and savings goals, you can easily 'see' everything helping you make informed and well planned decisions. Although for the UK, the big players like Microsoft Money and Quicken are now no longer developed, you could pick up one of the last versions for fairly cheap on ebay and begin to use. I used to work for the makers of Quicken, Intuit and I got 'converted' back in 2002, however my 'Sensible Financial Planning' lightbulb moment came back in 1993/4 just afer university. I think this 'basic' element of using software will really help you overall and from now on. I saw many instances of this when working at Intuit and how it's helped people in much worse situations than yourself get back to a much better situation. PM me if you need any help with Quicken - if you get it!

Hope this helps!
Cheers DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Before you can cut down you need to know how you are spending your money.  What do you spend your money on and how to you spend it?

For example, do you eat ready meals, eat out a lot, eat a lot of meat or something else entirely?  Each one of those responses will lead to a different suggestion.

As retirement approaches, this is going to be an issue for me too. My work pension will probably last about a year!
My biggest expense is probably real estate tax, so that means selling the house and moving to a cheaper town with better public transportation (so I could get rid of the car as well) and free trash pickup. (And that probably means moving back to the UK!)
I have already cancelled things like newspapers, get my hair cut at the el-Cheapo walk-in salon, watch what groceries I buy, although I could do better on that. I will also have to stop buying those little treats like coffee shop coffee, clothing items I don't really need, books and so on. I could cut back to the basic cable although that would mean not getting BBC America or TCM  It will also mean not making charitable contributions.

Get a library card. Free DVDs and videos. Only Skype for long distance calls.

I'd really consider housing association, if at all possible. Get housing advice:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/advice_services_directory/england/north_of_england

Freeze what you cook: you'll waste less.

Only buy clothes / toys from charity shops. Mend your clothes.

If you are not going to use your car at all, make a Statutory Off Road Notification
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/UntaxedVehicle/DG_4022058

Contact CAB or other  regarding any debts, debt advice:
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/wr_advice_neast_northumberland#amble

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/PlanYourWayOutOfDebt/DG_187500

Use a budgeting tool and review / discuss monthly:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/PlanYourWayOutOfDebt/DG_10023176

You can also get rid of you television and TV licence and only watch iPlayer etc.
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/tv-licence-refunds-top7/

ETA: Ebay unwanted items. Downgrade your car if you still want to keep one.

DH and I are doing the same.  So far, we've gotten rid of our car (we live in the city, so public transport is the way for us). I have a small weekly budget for groceries for us, so I have to be wise as to any meats and such.  I usually stock up, if able, when there are sales to stretch a dollar farther...especially on meats.  We take meals with us when we're at work and since it's summer, I make a pitcher of coffee and refridgerate it so we can have iced coffee each day without the expense ($2-3/day times two adds up quick).

We are considering downgrading our cable to just the basic package and save money that way, but having withdrawals thinking about missing BBC America as there are shows on there we just love.  I guess we'll just have to jump and do it...probably after Being Human has ended.   

The library card and Money Saving Expert are both great ideas.   Mr Red5 always takes a packed lunch to work and I  make extra at night for my lunch the next day. 
If you are in walking distance of a grocery you could always check out the yellow stickers in the evening. 
Beans, lentils, and soya mince will really bulk out a meal. 
We have freeview and are pleased with the number of channels it offers. 
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and your DH-Mr Red5 lost his job last year and it was not fun. 

Get a library card. Free DVDs and videos. Only Skype for long distance calls.


Only buy clothes / toys from charity shops. Mend your clothes.

Our library in Crewe charges fees for borrowing dvds and cds. Which is a big part of why I stopped going, and I was gutted about it, because I always loved borrowing them that way in the States, where it was always free at the libraries there. Is charging like this only in our town?

Yeah, I only get my clothes from charity shops.

And when I want a book off Amazon, I choose the used book price.

DH sells a lot of his unwanted stuff on play.com, and we're close to having enough points for an ipod.

DH keeps track of every single thing that he spends in a little booklet. I try as best as I can to do the same, but, I'm not as diligent as he is.

We have freesat. There's actually a lot of good movies shown, and all of the basic shows(dramas, bbc, etc,) are on freesat.

DH buys his t shirts in bulk, and then he just uses those in turn.

There will be loads more ideas from other people, I'm sure.

At my library in the US, it's free to rent DVDs and CDs.  It's free to put a book on hold from within the county system, within the state library system, or even from a library anywhere in the country.  It's wonderful.

At the library I used in London, it cost me to rent DVDs and CDs and even to put books on hold -- even if the book was already in that very library!  This really annoyed me, but I paid up, because what can you do?  In the end it's cheaper to put a book on hold from another library than to pay the Tube fare to that other library..  Sigh..

Everyone's had really good suggestions!  A few more...

Know your real living cost priorities from your non-priorities.  Top priorities are the things that have the worst consequences if you don't/can't pay them (i.e., rent/mortgage, council tax, utilities, child support, food within reason).  Cut out the luxuries just as you've indicated.  If after paying your top priority bills, you don't have enough to make full payments on unsecured debts, don't be pressured into paying what you can't afford.  (Unsecured creditors are always the ones that scream the loudest if you can't afford to pay them, because they have lesser recourse/consequence against someone than the landlord, mortgage lender, council, CSA administration, etc.  Hence the high pressure tactics of debt collectors.  You should never not pay your rent/mortgage, council tax, other priorities in favour of paying unsecured creditors.  I know this may seem obvious, but sometimes when a person is being pressured by a debt collector, well I've seen so many people do this & it's really unwise.)

Have a good look at & review of your priority costs.  Can you find cheaper digs?  Go on Uswitch.com to see if you can get your gas & leccy any cheaper?  We did that recently & saved ourselves quite a bit (we had to switch providers).  Money Saving Expert dude was saying recently that now is a good time to do it, because some of the offers out there right now allow you to lock in a certain rate per unit for a period of time (a year or so) before the utility companies raise rates again.

We did a budget recently, because I was thinking of quitting my job (but didn't, yet).  We switched over our gas & leccy providers to cheaper plans.  We cut back our TV/phone/broadband package with Virgin to something more basic (we don't watch a lot of TV anyway).  Examining our bank statement with a fine tooth comb, found out that DH was contributing double to a charity when he meant to be making only one direct debit for it a month.  And just started asking ourselves - gosh where is all our money going?

We started packing a lot more lunches & cooking more vegetarian meals.  I've hardly bought any booze for a month or so, and that took our grocery bill right down too. 

We are planning to change banks also, to an account that charges less/no fees & has higher customer service ratings than where we bank now.  (Haven't got to doing that yet.)  Right now, the monthly service charge we pay the bank includes breakdown cover & travel insurance (among other things), but we can get those cheaper by going to direct with a breakdown/insurance company than the rate we are paying the bank monthly.

Some bills if you sign up for online statements (paperless billing), you get a wee discount for that.

When our car insurance is coming due again (paid annually), we are going to see if we can get something cheaper for that.

We keep a car, but we don't use it very much.  We walk or use public transport - we do have transport costs for getting to our jobs.  However, we spend hardly anything as far as petrol and upkeep on the car, because we use it infrequently.  If push came to shove, we could live without the car if we had to.

Everyone has had great ideas for saving on the grocery bill!  At our house, we throw out very, very little food, if any.  We eat it all up & we love leftovers. 

For fun stuff, agree with using the library, board games, going for walks/bike rides, etc (you live in a beautiful place!).  Charity shops - great idea too.

I also think swapsies are a great idea, if you can work out a way to do that.  If you have a decent group/number of friends, how about getting together to swap clothes, books, DVDs, etc.  Or bartering services, like babysitting or ironing or cleaning or whatever in return for a friend doing something else for you.  It may be a throwback to earlier times, but what a way of saving/exchanging services and developing a sense of community too!

If there's a magazine subscription or something you want to keep, how about putting it on your Christmas or birthday list for someone else to treat you?

Lastly, if unsecured debt is a concern, get some advice from somewhere that's free.  If you think you want or need a debt management plan (reduced repayment scheme for debts that is administered by a third party), stay away from fee chargers!  Those are the ones where you have to pay a fee for the advice and/or they take a fee from what you pay them, before they pay the remaining over to your creditors.  Don't do it.  There are good places that do it for free!  You can see CAB for advice (be aware that CAB is frequently in great demand & understaffed & with a dearth of financial resources).  Two free DMP companies/charities are PayPlan and CCCS - there may be others, but I think those two are the biggest & best.

Yes, selling on Ebay, babysitting, etc...also get to writing & get your stuff out there to get paid! 

Oh yeah...another couple on food...

Anywhere that you can grow some of your own veg?  If not at yours, maybe at a family member's place?  Container veg?  Are there allotments available in your town?

I'm all about free food! 

The other kind of free food - foraging.  Google it & you'll come up with even more links/resources!  Blackberry season is a'coming, yes!  I <3 blackberries.  (Foraging includes goin' fishin' too.)

Lastly, I think it was mentioned on another thread (or maybe this one) - eating the seasons.